Mohamed Khirallah Traded Four-Hour Commute in Dubai For Family Life in Fredericton
FREDERICTON – After working in marketing and advertising for most of his career, Egyptian-born Mohamed Khirallah was looking for a quieter and slower-paced life for himself and his family.
So he traded in his traffic-jammed two-hour commute in Dubai for a new life and business in Fredericton where he has continued his marketing business while establishing Roticana Coffee Company.
Khirallah now saves those four hours of commuting time for himself and his family. Here, he’s able to easily connect with officials and government, something he says is crucial to the success of a startup like his.
“The Mayor of the city is my friend, the Member of Parliament is one of my friends. They know my name, they know what I’m doing,” he says. “Every time I’m facing a challenge in the business, they are there, very reachable and can solve it in a day or two.”
The strength of a place like New Brunswick, Khirallah says, is not only its largely untapped market but the strong sense of community and welcoming atmosphere it offers to newcomers. He says he expected many more hurdles when it came to his family adapting to the culture and getting his business off the ground.
“I was worried about my wife and how the community would react to her and my kids. But she’s even happier than me. She has more friends and more of a network than mine,” he says.
Running a business in New Brunswick doesn’t come without its challenges, though. Khirallah says there is an extra cost to being located here because of the need to ship raw goods and equipment to his coffee roasting location here and then again ship the finished product out. He has also faced the challenge of recruiting skilled labourers with the particular skill-set needed for his business.
But Khirallah’s decision to move here wasn’t solely motivated by business. He wanted to build a new life for his family.
I believe New Brunswickers are some of the best people to live with. They are very welcoming, very warm. They are very social. They didn’t experience this type of hectic lifestyle,” he says.
“It’s not only about the business. We have to put all this in the equation… Eventually, it’s about family. From this point of view, I think New Brunswick and Fredericton is one of the best places in the world to live.”
Khirallah has fully immersed himself and his family into the Canadian culture and business world. He says he doesn’t see the point in moving to a country and then continuing to live exactly as you were in your home country. While he still has great love for his home country of Egypt, he wanted to have the full Canadian experience because he felt his family’s values were well-aligned with those of this country.
Khirallah didn’t leave everything of his home country behind, though. His family has been in the coffee business for nearly 60 years, something he has taken advantage of when building his own business.
I love the process. The smell of the coffee when it’s roasting, it’s amazing. [Growing up,] I would even eat the beans after roasting. It’s like popcorn,” he says.
Khirallah used his background in marketing and advertising combined with the knowledge and connections in the coffee world that came from his upbringing to tap into the coffee market in New Brunswick and create something unique.
Roticana imports beans from Colombia, Brazil, India, Indonesia, and Guatemala to create their own blends, including Turkish and Middle Eastern styles. Their products are now available throughout New Brunswick and in Toronto and Montreal.
In the end, Khirallah found that the benefits of running a business in a place like Fredericton easily outweigh the challenges.
“I am happy to face challenges in my business, rather than have challenges for my family. The strength of New Brunswick and Fredericton is the community, not the economy.”